Principal’s Welcome

Dear Parents,

Welcome to our first SZPAB newsletter of 2023. It has been wonderful to see our students return to school following the Winter break ready to focus on their learning and engage in many different activities It has been a busy few weeks on the sporting front with teams competing in the ADEK Cup as well as Futsal and Volleyball matches Our Grade 2 students have made a visit to Emirates Park Zoo while a number of our High School students have been welcomed at NYU in Abu Dhabi and the Al Karamah Institute. Over the coming weeks, we look forward to the return of international visits to Italy for a group of students to experience skiing and to Jeddah, Makkah and Medinah for Umrah

Earlier this term, parents will have received Term 1 Report Cards for their children These reports provide parents with information regarding their child’s achievements across the curriculum. Following the report cards going home, it was wonderful to welcome parents into school to meet with our teachers for the second time this academic year. Feedback from our student progress meetings has been very positive and I would encourage all parents to take the opportunity to meet with our teachers when these arise. Parents who were unable to attend these meetings are very welcome to contact our Main Reception to arrange a time to meet with their child’s teachers.

Parents will also have received details of their child’s attendance rate for Term 1. ADEK set very clear expectations for the attendance of students as part of the School Inspection Framework An attendance rate of at least 94% is judged to be ‘good’ and a rate above 98% is seen to be ‘outstanding’. Students with an outstanding attendance rate for Term 1 will have received an ‘SZPAB Outstanding Attendance’ postcard. Whilst we fully appreciate that there are times when a child may be absent from school due to illness, it is important for parents to note that an absence whether it be excused or unexcused is still recorded as an absence I would like to thank our parents for supporting their children in ensuring high rates of attendance and punctuality at school as this will significantly contribute to their academic success.

Our monthly Parent Coffee & Tour events continue this term Thank you to those parents who joined us in early January for a presentation and tour from our Visual Performing Arts (VPA) team. Our next event is taking place on Tuesday 7th February at 8am – the focus will be Online Safety and will be led by our Digital team. We look forward to welcoming many parents to learn more about this very important topic.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support of our school.

Yours sincerely,

Mr Neil Matthews Principal

We would like to remind parents that the bags that students bring to school must not exceed a maximum weight depending on their grade as in the table below.

Parents are encouraged to: use ergonomic school bags with individualized compartments to efficiently hold books and equipment guide their children to wear both shoulder straps and not sling a school bag over one shoulder use wide, padded, adjustable school bag straps that fit their child’s body

Students are provided with shelves/lockers in school to store their bags during the day. A reminder that trolley bags ie bags with wheels are not permitted for safety reasons